on and associations, was Panama. For many a
year it slept on neglected and almost forgotten. Now it has been
completely aroused from its lethargy, to find itself in the middle of
the highway to California, and the chief resting-place of gold-diggers.
It is bounded by the sea on three sides, and surrounded by a wall with
ditch and bastions on the land side. In the centre is the _plaza_, into
which converge several streets of old-fashioned, sedate-looking Spanish
houses, with broad verandas and heavy folding-shutters. Now a change
has rudely come over them. Above the door of one appeared, in huge
characters--"American Hotel"; while a board announced that "Good
Lodging, Brandy Smashes, Sice, and Egg-nog," were to be obtained within.
There are several other hotels with conspicuous signs, all denoting
that they have been established by citizens of the United States, while
there exist several restaurants, cafes, and newspaper and billiard-rooms
besides. A steamer had arrived only a few days before at Aspinwall, on
the east side, and the town was consequently full of passengers who had
come across by the railway. Nowhere, perhaps, are the past and the
present brought into greater contrast. We visited the ruins of several
churches and other buildings with massive walls, which probably never
were finished,--all attesting the departed importance of the place. Now
palm-trees grow in their lonely courts; tropical climbing plants throw
their festoons in rich luxuriance over their elaborate architecture, and
banana-trees have taken root in the clefts of the crumbling walls.
Panama, however, is not the identical city whence Pizarro sailed for the
conquest of the kingdom of the Incas. That city stood six miles down
the coast; and after it was sacked and utterly destroyed by Morgan, who
murdered every soul then within it, none returned to take up their
habitation there, and it still remains as he left it, a heap of ruins,
now overgrown by rank vegetation.

We were fortunate in finding the directions Captain Frankland expected
to guide his future course, and I got letters from home. How greedily I
devoured them! Every word I read over and over again, and I kissed them
more than once, when I knew Jerry was not looking at me. I do not give
a longer account of the place, because I was engaged most of the time I
was there in writing home. I judged from the delight I felt in getting
letters, that mine would afford a somewhat simi